Network DVD

[fdm]

Anyone know for certain whether Ipcress File blu-ray is all-region?

[Person]

Anyone know for certain whether Ipcress File blu-ray is all-region?

It must be, as it played straight away when I inserted it - if a disc is A, B or C encoded, then I have to enter a 1, 2 or 3 respectively while the player is in stand-by mode. I didn't have to do this for Ipcress. Are certain ITV BDs region-encoded?

[fdm]

Anyone know for certain whether Ipcress File blu-ray is all-region?

It must be, as it played straight away when I inserted it - if a disc is A, B or C encoded, then I have to enter a 1, 2 or 3 respectively while the player is in stand-by mode. I didn't have to do this for Ipcress. Are certain ITV BDs region-encoded?

Apparently not yet, but I don't want to be owning the first one that is... The back of the case should have a marking of what regions it's encoded for (A and/or B and/or C)...

[Person]

There's no A, B, C marking anywhere on the cover - I guess that means that Ipcress is region-free.

[fdm]

There's no A, B, C marking anywhere on the cover - I guess that means that Ipcress is region-free.

Seems to be the case. Thanks...

[Telstar]

Network appears to be taking the gloves off and will be releasing WHO KILLED TEDDY BEAR next month.
Sal Mineo's finest moment.

[Cash Flagg]

Upcoming releases, from DVD Times:

26th January 2009:
Escape From Sobibor - £12.99 RRP - Alan Arkin, Joanna Pacula and Rutger Hauer star in this Holocaust film. On 14th October 1943, inmates of ‘death camp’ Sobibor, in Eastern Poland, carried out a terrifyingly audacious plan to escape. Those organising the revolt knew that the plan must include every prisoner – leaving no one behind to face reprisals from the SS. This film recounts those events.

Noel Coward’s This Happy Breed (Special Edition) - £14.99 RRP – Digitally remastered 2-disc set of what was David Lean’s first official credit as a director. The film adaptation from Noel Coward’s hit stage play would be one of several successful collaborations between Lean and Coward.

Features include:

* Brand new-digital restoration
* Original theatrical trailer
* Re-release trailer
* Restoration comparison featurette
* Extensive South Bank Show feature on David Lean
* Commemorative booklet by noted British film historian David Rolinson
* Extensive stills gallery, including behind the scenes images
* Original Pressbook and material in PDF format


Room at the Top (Special Edition) - £14.99 RRP - Directed by Jack Clayton (The Great Gatsby), Room at the Top chronicles the life of an ambitious young working-class man called Joe Lampton (Laurence Harvey) who moves into the Yorkshire town Warnley. There he pursues Susan (Heather Sears), against the wishes of her father, a powerful local industrialist. But Joe then falls in love with Alice (Simone Signoret), an older unhappily married French woman. Inevitably, their intense affair does not remain a secret and when Susan becomes pregnant, Joe is forced to choose between the two women – and the opposing worlds they represent.

Features include:

* Brand new transfer from the original 35mm film elements (1.66:1 Widescreen)
* Audio commentary with and commemorative booklet by noted film historian and writer Neil Sinyard
* Image Gallery
* Jack Clayton's press cuttings scrapbook (PDF)


West End Jungle - £16.99 RRP - Released through Strike Force Entertainment and Network, West End Jungle offers a comprehensive insight into the history and once referred to, ‘seedy reality’ of the sex industry of the early sixties in Soho. The film was banned in 1961 but is now coming to DVD.

Features include:

* 4:3, English Mono
* Newsreel: Clubs Galore! (Soho 1958)
* Newsreel: Sir John Wolfenden on Prostitution and the Street Offences Act 1959
* Director Arnold Miller in Conversation
* Viewing Notes Booklet

Who Killed Teddy Bear - £14.99 RRP - Refused certification on its original theatrical release in 1965 (and never subsequently seen anywhere in the UK) due to its sleazy subject matter, this psychological crime thriller stars Sal Mineo, Juliet Prowse, Jan Murray and Elaine Stritch.

Extras include:

* Court Martial: The House Where He Lived - an episode of the 1960s WWII legal drama guest-starring Sal Mineo and Anthony Quayle
* LSD: Insight or Insanity - a short documentary from 1967 aimed at teenagers about the dangers of LSD with narration by Sal Mineo
* Stills gallery for Who Killed Teddy Bear and Court Martial
* PDF of the original publicity and promotion brochure
* Trailer

23rd February 2009

Carnival of Souls - £14.99 RRP - This horror directed by Herk Harvey and first released in 1962 comes to DVD with the following features:

* Audio commentary with horror experts Kim Newman and Stephen Jones
* Booklet written by Kim Newman

The Ghoul (Special Edition) - £14.99 RRP - Boris Karloff stars in this “horror classic” that was thought lost for many years until a subtitled – but of poor quality – print surfaced in Prague. Many years later a copy of the uncut British print was found, and it is this version which has undergone extensive digital restoration for this release. Features include:

* Audio commentary with horror critics Stephen Jones and Kim Newman
* Commemorative booklet written by Stephen Jones

[Cash Flagg]

Network appears to be taking the gloves off and will be releasing WHO KILLED TEDDY BEAR next month.
Sal Mineo's finest moment.

Just finished watching this. Mineo is wonderfully creepy. And what dance moves! The transfer is ragged in places, but certainly watchable. There are some great shots of vintage Times Square, including a porn shop that sells Naked Lunch and Tropic of Cancer alongside the skin mags. Network included a full little extra, narrated by Mineo, entitled LSD: Insight or Insanity? - one of those late 60's "LSD will make you jump off of a cliff!" shorts used to scare impressionable teenagers.

[Awesome Welles]

I saw an ad recently that Network are releasing Michael Apted's Up series and is currently available at a reasonable pre-order price of £36 at Amazon. Or if you prefer £29.99 at Choices I have never used them before - are they realiable), £31.99 at Play.

From Network's site:

This groundbreaking DVD release has been made with the co-operation of the Up production team and features an in-depth interview with Michael Apted on his time at Granada, as well as commentaries with producer Claire Lewis, film editor Kim Horton and cameraman George Jesse Turner.

Having never seen the films in full (only extracts here and there) I am really intrigued by the films but am not sure whether to go ahead and buy them, they don't strike me as films I could watch more than once, am I wrong? I could always rent them but have no idea as to whether Network's DVDs appear regularly at LoveFilm.

[zedz]

Having never seen the films in full (only extracts here and there) I am really intrigued by the films but am not sure whether to go ahead and buy them, they don't strike me as films I could watch more than once, am I wrong? I could always rent them but have no idea as to whether Network's DVDs appear regularly at LoveFilm.

It's a fantastic project and you'll probably want to watch some of the later ones more than once. The 'problem' of the series (but it's really intrinsic to the nature of the project) is that each installment has to sum up what's gone before and be self-contained, so certain clips, particularly from the earliest installments, where there's less to choose from, are repeated every time. I find that quite effective, because it ingrains the characters, but it can be offputting if you're watching the entire series as a kind of marathon.

Another issue I have with the latest installments is that so much of the running time has to be devoted to the individual back stories that the new information gets really truncated, but again, that's the nature of the project, and it's also sort of appropriate to the way in which time perception compresses as you age.

They're films I like to revisit from time to time - seven years is a long time between visits with people you know so well - but they might not work for you the same way. One thing is for certain: they're a must see. Definitely rent them at least.

[Awesome Welles]

Thanks for the info zedz, I will definitely rent them, not sure about buying at the moment as I am trying to slim things down right now. But they do sound intriguing. I don't think it's something I would watch as a marathon, the project doesn't strike as something which would be richer for it.

When I watch documentaries I certainly appreciate them as works which capture a certain time, place and offer a certain discussion but the topic they cover but the documentaries that I find watch more than once are films which offer a discussion on the form itself like Sherman's March, For For Fake and I guess would extend to films like Close Up and The Apple or even something like David Holzman's Diary. I guess I feel like when a documentary has told you a story and has nothing else to offer why watch it again? I could be totally wrong here and perhaps I haven't been watching the 'right' documentaries...

[MichaelB]

This won't come as a surprise, but Carnival of Souls isn't a patch on the Criterion - the picture is very soft, and the running time suggests an NTSC-PAL conversion (though I'm not 100% certain about this as I haven't compared directly with the Criterion). The Kim Newman/Stephen Jones commentary is excellent, but if you only want one release of the film, there's only one sensible choice!

[colinr0380]

DVD Outsider review of Carnival of Souls.

[Perkins Cobb]

The 60s spy anthology Espionage, with three episodes directed by Michael Powell (!), is coming out this month from Network.

Stuart Rosenberg, Seth Holt, and Ted Kotcheff also directed segments of the series.

[ethel]

FSimeoni, your forebodings about Michael Apted's Up series are correct! The idea seemed mildly interesting, but watching the films any more than singly, on TV, once every seven years is very tough going. The films get longer as the years go by, the grinding repetition of the tiny bits of interesting footage has you climbing the walls, and worst of all, the not terribly interesting folks they interview are mainly just not gripping enough to hold your attention for dozens of hours. Once they get through their cranky adolescence, that's sort of it, really, and now that the techniques pioneered by this series have been adopted in every country in the televised world, you're left staring listlessly at the screen and wondering why they all seemed so much more lively when they were seven years old. Rent!

[Awesome Welles]

Hi Ethel, thanks for your response. I will definitely try and rent the series at some point, I am trying to cut back on my purchases anyway so I think renting will be the way forward on a lot of things!

[TIVOLI]

Has anyone seen the cheapo edition of One-Eyed Jacks that Network released last month? I believe that R1 only has this in PD presumably horrible transfers, so I am curious to know about this release and its print quality.

[Person]

Has anyone seen the cheapo edition of One-Eyed Jacks that Network released last month? I believe that R1 only has this in PD presumably horrible transfers, so I am curious to know about this release and its print quality.

Amazon UK listing

I would like to know how the transfer is, too. Network don't strike me as the type of company that would stoop to jumping on the ricketiest of home video bandwagons that is One-Eyed Jacks, but the price makes me suspicious - maybe they are just competing with the others? Paramount or Criterion should release a Blu-Ray transferred and cleaned up from the negative - it would be easy to spot any bootlegs from their edition, as it would look at least ten times better than any other DVD in the world.

[Cash Flagg]

I asked Network about their One-Eyed Jacks disc, and received this response:

I'm sorry to say that this title has not been remastered and there are no special features.

[Person]

I thought as much. Thanks for effort, Cash!

[meanwhile]

Just in case it has passes under the radar, the Network title 'British Air Traffic Control 1963 - 1973' includes the 1963 Peter Watkins film The Controllers, made for the COI, in which air traffic control operations are explained to four trainees.

[NLK]

I notice that both Play and Amazon.co.uk have a Blu-ray release listed for Powell & Pressburger's The Red Shoes. Release date is 29th June.

[tojoed]

Olivier's Hamlet and Henry V, and Hitchcock's 39 Steps are being released on BluRay from Granada ventures (who I think are Network) on October 12th.

[Nothing]

Soi Cowboy and Tony Manero on September 28th.

[John Hodson]

Olivier's Hamlet and Henry V, and Hitchcock's 39 Steps are being released on BluRay from Granada ventures (who I think are Network) on October 12th.

They're coming from ITV DVD (formerly Granada) who do license material to Network, but not on this occasion.